The Midwest Region has several different nicknames, including “Heartland,” “America’s Breadbasket,” and “Middle America!” The Midwest produces more corn each year than any other region! Roller skates were invented in the Midwest! Chicago is both the largest city and unofficial capital of the Midwest!

Midwest, also called Middle West or North Central States, region, northern and central United States, lying midway between the Appalachians and Rocky Mountains and north of the Ohio River and the 37th parallel.

The Midwest has a rep for friendly people, cheap land, and a stress-free lifestyle that differs dramatically from other US regions. Many people are flocking to the Midwest because of its affordable cost of living, open spaces, and relaxed pace of life.

Sometimes called “the breadbasket of America” the Midwest serves as a center for grain production, particularly wheat, corn and soybeans. Graham bread, steamed cornbread, and johnny cakes are traditional Midwestern foods, as are butter cakes like chocolate cake, devil’s food cake, coconut cake and fruit cake.

Goulash, Hungarian gulyás, traditional stew of Hungary. The origins of goulash have been traced to the 9th century, to stews eaten by Magyar shepherds.

Check out these 25 dishes you’ll only find in the Midwest.

• Beer Brats. Dreamstime.
• Beer Cheese Dip. Dreamstime.
• Buckeyes. Dreamstime.
• Cheese Balls. istockphoto.com.
• Cheesy Broccoli Bake. istockphoto.com.
• Chicago-Style Hot Dogs. istockphoto.com.
• Chippers. Dreamstime.
• Cincinnati Chili. istockphoto.com.

Ranch makes everything taste better. Midwesterners often joke that ranch should be its own food group, because they put the creamy dressing on pretty much everything. It’s good on pizza, sandwiches, salads, raw vegetables; the list goes on.

“There are more than 127 million acres of agricultural land in the Midwest, and in addition to 75% of that area in corn and soybeans, the other 25% is used to produce alfalfa, apples, asparagus, green beans, blueberries, cabbage, carrots, sweet and tart cherries, cranberries, cucumbers, grapes, oats, onions, peaches.

Hotdish is an anything goes one-dish meal from the Upper Midwest, but it’s especially beloved in Minnesota and North Dakota. A traditional main course, hot dish is cooked and served hot in a single baking dish and commonly appears at family reunions and church suppers.

Truman asked Americans to conserve food for European countries recovering from the war. Even when food restrictions ended, Americans continued making hot dish because the baby boom forced them to again stretch their resources, Eighmey said. By then, hot dish had also become a Minnesota fixture.

According to Deutsch, the product did not sell well at first, so Ore-Ida decided to market it as toppings for casserole. Hotdish is common terminology in western Wisconsin and Minnesota, while casserole is the preferred name everywhere else in the country.

The term hot dish is typically utilized in the upper parts of Minnesota and North Dakota because people up there like to coin their own verbiage, much like “uff da” or “you betcha.” You probably called it a casserole, like this one, and, not to sound like a hot dish snob, but the parameters of hot dish are a bit more …

hotdish

Definition: Casserole is the name of the dish used to cook with, whereas hot dish is the meal itself. Purpose: A casserole can serve any function, for example, a main dish, side dish, breakfast, or even dessert. A hot dish is a main meal only, as it (purportedly) contains all the nutrients one needs in a hearty meal.

In the United States, a casserole or hot dish is typically a baked food with three main components: pieces of meat (such as chicken or ground meat) or fish (such as tuna) or other protein (such as beans or tofu), various chopped or canned vegetables (such as green beans or peas), and a starchy binder (such as flour.

Merriam-Webster says the etymology of the word casserole can be traced from the Greek kyathos (cup) to the Old French casse, which means ladle. There’s also the Latin cattia, which means ladle and pan.

chuck

Elmire Jolicour

1950s

Why are there drops of water inside the bake dish or casserole after you exposed it to the sun? Because the warm water condenses and becomes water drops​

But first, a little background. Lasagna, in Italy at least, has never been an everyday dish. And, not surprisingly, sophisticated northern Italians consider the lasagna of Emilia-Romagna the true national standard-bearer, with its meaty Bolognese sauce and creamy bechamel mingling between translucent pasta layers.

It’s also a point of emphasis for the traditional variety, although these noodles are somewhat more forgiving. Lasagna is filling, relatively easy to assemble and make, highly adaptable and keeps well, making it an intriguing choice for restaurant chefs creating menus and home cooks alike.

It’s milk thickened with a binder of briefly cooked butter and flour, called roux. Béchamel, which is one of the “mother sauces” of French cuisine, is used as a soufflé base, to nap various dishes as a sauce; it’s also the helpful, glorious glue that can hold baked dishes together.

Yes, your lasagna needs a béchamel and a tomato-based marinara sauce. The only acceptable workaround is to make a meat ragú with plenty of milk or cream. Point being: You need some dairy up in there, beyond the cheese. A cream-based sauce keeps things moist and counters the acidity of the tomatoes.

To build up the layers of your lasagne, have your ingredients and sauces ready and to hand. Then, add a layer of white sauce, followed by another single layer of pasta sheets. Carry on alternating the tomato sauce, lasagne sheets and white sauce until you get to the top of the dish, or your sauces run out!

This classic Italian lasagna is authentic, made with bechamel white sauce (no ricotta) and a simple red sauce. There’s no cottage cheese, “cream of” soups, ricotta cheese or anything else you may find in other lasagna recipes.